a kingdom without a king, with no sense of belonging
by brett please
Summary: "He's my Apollo. He's the Orestes to my Pylades. He'll always hate me and it'll never work. I fucking know it. I get so fucking worked up about him and he doesn't give two shits," Grantaire muttered. The words were easier to spill out now with the burning in his throat. AU.


"You go first."

They were sitting in his apartment because a rat infestation and worse, her parents currently populated hers. His was pretty shit but there were no bugs (yet) just a huge pile of laundry on the floor and vomit stains in the carpet and two day old Chinese take-out in the sink. Éponine, against angry protests, put The Shins on his fifteen year old boombox, a relic from the days when Britney Spears was a virgin. They sat cross-legged on the floor, a good way away from the stain that Éponine didn't know was vomit but was a funny green color and was therefore cautious of. There was cheap vodka they passed the bottle wordlessly between them.

"You go. I sound fucking stupid."

"I sound worse."

"You're a girl so it's okay."

"_Excuse_ me?"

Éponine's brown eyes flashed dangerously and Grantaire found himself apologizing. He kept forgetting that she didn't laugh off his sarcasm or pity him when he antagonized her. She fought back, with her nails if need be.

"I'll go first," Grantaire said out of an effort to appease the glowering girl gulping down copious amounts of five dollar vodka. Éponine nodded.

"He…" Grantaire struggled to find the words and realized, to his horror, that a hot flush was spreading over his cheeks. "I fucking… He hates me, okay."

Éponine nodded slowly. Her eyes were already starting to look glazed. She pretended to be wild, and in a way, she was (Grantaire knew there were at least a dozen unspecified pills at the bottom of her purse and they bottle they were partaking in hadn't been obtained through legal means). Still, she was only seventeen and had yet to damage her liver as spectacularly as Grantaire had.

"I just hate that he hates me," He finished.

"I don't think Enjolras hates you," said Éponine gently. She laid a hand on Grantaire's knee. He could see the scars under her collection of bracelets. He felt absurdly stupid and also grateful.

"He's my Apollo. He's the Orestes to my Pylades. He'll always hate me and it'll never work. I fucking know it. I get so fucking worked up about him and he doesn't give two shits," Grantaire muttered. The words were easier to spill out now with the burning in his throat.

"You lost me with the Greek shit," Éponine commented wryly.

"Maybe you'd get it if you actually, like, attended school. It isn't that hard to show up to high school, Ep," Grantaire said. He liked the way her pretty, pale face fell. She was so lovely, lovely, lovely to him. She was so fucking stupid.

"Stop the paternal shit. I can't take you seriously when you text me at 9 am letting me know you're wasted during your Virgil lecture," She said. Lovely Ep. She took everything in such good humor. She had stopped drinking but Grantaire couldn't. He needed another sip, another, another. The room wasn't swimming yet. He could still picture Enjolas's blue eyes vividly.

"I needed the moral support," Grantaire said. Éponine laughed, a croaking, hoarse bellow.

"Marius loves someone," Éponine said after a moment of silence. Oh. _Shit._ This was new. Grantaire wondered if he was sober enough to be comforting. The edges of his vision were blurring slightly.

"Who?" Grantaire asked.

"Some… girl. You know, I told myself he wouldn't like me anyway because I'm still in high school and maybe he wanted someone his own age, right? But she's a year younger than I am. I hate it," Éponine cried breathily.

"That fucking sucks," Grantaire said. His chest felt warm. He wanted to feel said for Éponine but he couldn't feel sad at all. That was the good thing about vodka. He was starting to feel quite safe. He was starting to feel like he was wrapped in cotton. He was starting to forget the exact shade of Enjolras's irises.

"I hate it," Éponine burst out, her voice heavy with barely suppressed tears. "Monty says it's stupid but I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."

Grantaire had a vague impression of a warm body being flung onto him. God, she was thin. He could feel her hipbones and her rib cage dig into him uncomfortably. Still, her face was almost feverishly hot and she clutched at his shoulder blades with a ferocious strength. They sat there for a while, Éponine sobbing into Grantaire's still form.

"Monty's a fucking idiot," Grantaire said finally. Éponine detached herself and her face was only two inches from his. She was lovely, she was. The beginning of a smile was starting to work its way into her thin, pink lips. She had high, proud cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes with long, curled eyelashes.

Grantaire felt lonely. He loved the feeling of the frail, shaking body pressed against his chest and as he watched Éponine bite her bottom lip, showing off a row of crooked white teeth, something inside his chest broke.

He pushed his mouth against Éponine's, a small, sober part of his brain expecting to be smacked, to yelled at, to be massacred with those razor-sharp nails. Instead, he was kissed back, forcefully. Éponine rolled Grantaire flat onto his back and sat on his stomach, her hands running down his chest and her mouth pressed to his. She was ferocious. Her tongue almost seemed sharp. Grantaire had barely registered that he was kissing, God, he was kissing a pretty girl, when Éponine flung her hole-ridden black t-shirt off, revealing a red bra that was far too small and squeezed her breasts magnificently. Her mouth was still on his, boring into the spot where his tonsils had once been.

"You don't love me. You love Marius," Grantaire gasped when Éponine resurfaced for air. He felt dizzy and sick but also ridiculously turned on. He wasn't sure if he wanted to curl into a ball and fall asleep to the soothing sounds of _Fight Club_ or fuck Éponine senselessly. He was leaning towards the latter but had a vague suspicion that doing so would be bad or, at the very least, trigger the nausea that grew in back of his throat.

"I thought you said you liked boys and girls," Éponine shot back. She sat on his hipbones, perfectly composed though her make-up was smeared down her face and her hair was wild.

"I don't like boys. I like _a_ boy. And I don't even know if I like him… that way," Grantaire said. His words felt heavy in his mouth. The room was spinning wonderfully, like a merry-go-round.

"So you haven't decided if you want to get fucked up the bum yet?" Éponine said and Grantaire felt hatred bubble in his gut. He hated her thin, mocking smile for that moment.

"I just want to _be_ with him but it's not like it matters because he hates me and I'm a mess and I'll probably get hit by a car before he even remembers I'm a person," Grantaire muttered. He couldn't lie when he was like this.

"Want a good fuck before you get hit by a car?" Éponine said. She was grinning and gyrating on his pelvis slowly, her hands firmly fixated around his waist. Grantaire felt himself grow hard. He wanted it so fucking badly. He wanted to feel close to another person, even one as broken and sad as him. He wanted to gasp and groan and run his hands through that person's hair and he wanted, afterwards, to fall asleep to the sound of another person's breathing.

"I'm on the pill. There won't be any baby R's running around in nine months," Éponine said.

That triggered something and Grantaire felt it rise inside of him. The nausea outweighed the horniness; the remains of a moral compass won against nihilism. He sat up and pushed Éponine off him.

"You're fucked up," he said sadly. Éponine frowned and pushed her hair back.

"So are you," she said. The manic lust was out of her face and she looked like a little girl.

"That's why we're friends," he offered weakly. He felt awful. Tomorrow was an ABC meeting and he doubted he would be able to make it when the hangover from hell kicked in. Enjolras would roll his eyes when Courfeyrac told him and he'd say, "_Well, from R it's to be expected_." The finality of it rolled over Grantaire and he felt bile rise in his throat. Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd get a "how are you?" text. Maybe, if he was very lucky, an e-mail.

"I just hate being on my own," Éponine said. God, she looked young. She hadn't taken her SATs yet. Remembering how he had wanted her just moments beforehand made Grantaire inwardly wince.

"You're not on your own. You have me," he choked out awkwardly. It was hard to be a good friend when your world was tilting crazily. Still, he crawled onto his lumpy sofa and squeezed himself into the smallest corner and extended his arm. Taking the lead, Éponine lay down next to him and laid her head against his collarbone. He wrapped his arms around her and breathed in her scent, cigarettes and soot. She was warm against him.

"I know it seems scary and awful now and it is. But you'll get through it. We'll get through this," he muttered into the top of Éponine's head. He felt her sigh deeply against him.

"Does college suck as much as high school?" She asked in a small voice, the start of a slur falling into her words. Grantaire considered.

There was Enjolras, his obsession and the bane of his existence. There was also Courfeyrac and Combeferre and Joly and Bousset and Feuilly and Jehan and Bahorel and Marius, even though Marius was a dipshit. There were ABC meetings which he always associated with the smell of scalding hot coffee and the sound of Courfeyrac's booming laughter. There were classes which made him feel stimultaneously smart and stupid. There were parties where he could drink himself into oblivion and no one would notice. There was Musichetta, who let him fuck her in the men's locker room. There were Friday nights where they all watched _American Idol_ and threw popcorn on the screen when a particularly bad contestant sang. There was the café.

"Just keep moving," He whispered. He felt himself sinking into memory and a soft sort of dream. Not a nightmare.

"There's a lot more to live beyond Marius."

"But I love him," Éponine said in a small voice. Grantaire felt the edges of his consciousness fall. He felt so wonderfully comfortable.

"It's not…" he began before falling into a blessedly deep sleep. He dreamt of Enjolas.


End file.
